To Prevent the Rest
by promisetokeep
Summary: Some angelic time-bending prevents the best moment in Castiel's existence from occurring. Set during 8x08. Oneshot


_He had to erase it. Don't you see? Dean couldn't handle this, not yet. So he did. He changed the past and prevented the best moment of his life from happening._

"Because if I see what heaven's become, what I made of it, I'm afraid I might kill myself." Castiel said with raw, wrenching honesty.

Dean just stared at his best friend for a moment. His chest felt like it was constricting, his body collapsing in on itself. Cas, his only real friend, the one person he trusted, even more than Sammy, to never leave him, might chose to leave him. Dean reflected in a flash how he would feel if he himself had decimated masses upon masses of humans; he would probably not have lived as long as Cas already had with this kind of knowledge.

It was happening before Dean had a chance to think: he reached out to touch Castiel's knee, to comfort him even though he knew that nothing could take away that guilt and pain in the angel's deep blue eyes, and then Dean moved to the other bed, beside Cas, and pulled his friend in for a hug. Castiel tensed up at this unexpected gesture, but as Dean held on, despite the whirlwind of confusion and accusations flying around in his head, Cas relaxed and leaned into the warm, wide chest of his friend. He felt the strangest sensation in his throat and nose and eyes - _was this some kind of sneeze?_ - and then the tears that had formed leaked out, and he choked out the sob which was caught in his throat.

Dean felt the damp tears through his button down, and hearing the wretched sounds of an angel crying for the first time, froze in panic. How the hell do you react when a man cries? He'd had a few bouts of the damn experience in his life, but sobbing he'd left behind in a hotel bathroom in middle school. At a loss for how to react, he called upon his one good resource for emotional interactions: what would Mom have done? So instead of pushing Cas away, telling him to dry his damn eyes, Dean started swaying them both back and forth the way his mother had done when Dean skinned a knee or dropped his favorite toy soldier down a gutter. He started running one hand over Castiel's head, and making slow, calming circles on his back with the other. Cas's sobbing soon slowed to a raspy uneven breathing, and finally he heaved a sigh which seemed to bear the weight of the world, and pulled back a bit to look into Dean's face. Blood-shot and puffy blue met concerned and terrified hazel, and for a long moment they were locked in the gaze and embrace.

"Thank you Dean, I have never experienced that before, in fact I don't think an angel has ever cried before, and I -" His words were cut short as Dean, again not thinking and almost without his volition, leaned in and, slowly, lifted his lips to meet Castiel's. For a second time Cas was caught completely off-guard, but his eyes fluttered shut and the two men leaned into each other's lips, still and quiet, as though drawing strength from the other. They drew each other close, and simultaneously breathed another sigh, this time of release. After several long moments, they broke the kiss, resting forehead on forehead and holding each other. Castiel would have stayed there in that moment for the rest of eternity if he could. But the accusations were back in Dean's head the longer he held Cas, and the louder they got the more he recognized them as being in John's voice.

_What the hell Dean, you're kissing a MAN_

_So you're GAY then? Always knew you were a screw up homo_

_Fucking pathetic homo, you are disgusting_

_You're no son of mine, you filthy gay_

He jerked back, sick to the stomach. What the hell was he doing? How could he be feeling this? He had forced it down for so long, had ignored and explained away every part of this, but it was now all for nothing.

"Fuck, Cas, shit I - no I can't do this -" his voice was rough, angry, but it broke. He vaulted off the bed and to the other side of the room, grabbing his coat. Cas watched with aching heart as Dean, _his_ Dean, finally did exactly what Cas had been expecting him to do.

Dean wrenched open the door, and paused for a moment.

"Tell Sammy I'm - I'm giving Garth a hand in Montana. And that I'll see him in a few weeks." And with that he was gone, the door slammed shut, silence descending with a terrifying force. Castiel stared after his friend for a long moment, then down at his hands.

"This cannot be," he muttered, and drawing upon all the heavenly power he had access to, fell back in time with a soft rustle of wings. He found Sam and coaxed him home early, and then settled onto the hotel bed in time to say,

"- what I made of it, I'm afraid I might kill myself."

Dean's expression shifted with a pattern of emotions that Castiel had memorized the first time, and Sam barged through the door to prevent the rest.

_-Fin-_


End file.
